Rob, Rambling - A lot of things interest me...

I don’t like change…

It was a little weird this morning, coming out of Waterloo station and seeing a bus that was a lot smaller than the one I used last Friday. The bigger bendy buses on the 521 route have been replaced by smaller versions, with two entry points instead of three.

Obviously, this is now a completely anecdotal piece of evidence, having used it just once so far this week, but it immediately strikes me that there aren’t very many seats on the new bus. There are big areas to stand in, with plenty of poles and hanging grips to support yourself, but seats are few and far between. Maybe that’s the idea for this bus: transport as many people as possible as quickly as possible, with scant regard for comfort.

I’m also a little concerned about the situation at Waterloo station with regards to queues. Even when the old 521s had three doors and thus three queues snaking backwards whilst waiting for a bus, these queues could get pretty damn lengthy. They’d go down the stairs and almost back into the station, and one would go round the back of the stairs onto that one-way street.

Now we’re going to be down to two queues, and even with the supposed increased frequency of buses, long queues will inevitably form. These are going to be really, really long, and possibly a little dangerous if they stretch back to the bottom of the escalators.

Plus, our driver this morning seemed to enjoy the thrill of having a smaller, more nimble bus than the unwieldy bendy version, and was really throwing it round the corners. When you’re standing (as more people will be now), that’s not the safest or most comfortable way to travel.

I’ll see how it goes over the rest of the week, but it’s disappointing that bendy buses (which are after all relatively new) have been phased out to leave a less-than-perfect replacement…